Chapter 4

THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS

The Inspector scanned me close for a few minutes in silence. He
seemed doubtful, suspicious. At last he made a new move. "I believe
you, Miss Callingham," he said, more gently. "I can see this train
of thought distresses you too much. But I can see, too, our best
chance lies in supplying you with independent clues which you may
work out for yourself. You must re-educate your memory. You want to
know all about this murder, of course. Well, now, look over these
papers. They'll tell you in brief what little we know about it. And
they may succeed in striking afresh some resonant chord in your
memory."

He handed me a book of pasted newspaper paragraphs, interspersed
here and there in red ink with little manuscript notes and comments.
I began to read it with profound interest. It was so strange for me
thus to learn for the first time the history of my own life; for I
was quite ignorant as yet of almost everything about my First State,
and my father and mother.

The paragraphs told me the whole story of the crime, as far as it
was known to the world, from the very beginning. First of all, in
the papers, came the bald announcement that a murder had been
committed in a country town in Staffordshire; and that the victim
was Mr. Vivian Callingham, a gentleman of means, residing in his own
house, The Grange, at Woodbury. Mr. Callingham was the inventor of
the acmegraphic process. The servants, said the telegram to the
London papers, had heard the sound of a pistol-shot, about half-past
eight at night, coming from the direction of Mr. Callingham's
library. Aroused by the report, they rushed hastily to the spot, and
broke open the door, which was locked from within. As they did so, a
horrible sight met their astonished eyes. Mr. Callingham's dead body
lay extended on the ground, shot right through the heart, and
weltering in its life-blood. Miss Callingham stood by his side,
transfixed with horror, and mute in her agony. On the floor lay the
pistol that had fired the fatal shot. And just as the servants
entered, for one second of time, the murderer who was otherwise
wholly unknown, was seen to leap from the window into the shrubbery
below. The gardener rushed after him, and jumped down at the same
spot. But the murderer had disappeared as if by magic. It was
conjectured he must have darted down the road at full speed, vaulted
the gate, which was usually locked, and made off at a rapid run for
the open country. Up to date of going to press, the Telegraph said,
he was still at large and had not been apprehended.

That was the earliest account--bald, simple, unvarnished. Then came
mysterious messages from the Central Press about the absence of any